Details: Shana Cleveland "Manzanita" CD/CS (2023, Hardly Art Records). New stock, sealed.

Description: "[Manzanita] is set in the natural world and Cleveland’s move to rural California allowed for most of the songwriting to take place outside. Shana says, “This is a song about Spring and rebirth. In California, Spring is the season when nature comes inside. The house is suddenly full of weird bugs. A line from this song encapsulates the album -  ‘Everything is blindingly in bloom.’

... Manzanita, like her 2019 solo LP Night of the Worm Moon, is set back and away from the genre-recombinant garage pop of her band La Luz.  On it she continues to play guitar and vocals; Johnny Goss, who has recorded all of Shana’s solo material and early La Luz recordings, and Abbey Blackwell (Alvvays, La Luz) play the bass; Olie Eshleman is on pedal steel; and her life partner Will Sprott (Shannon and the Clams) plays the keyboards, dulcimer, glockenspiel, harpsichord, and synthesizers. 

The natural world greatly informs Manzanita, in part because that’s her workplace. Shana now lives in rural California and says “part of moving here for me was living somewhere where writing outside was possible all year.” The record was also recorded around the time of having her first child, an experience which made her realize that she is not separate from nature, that none of us are. “This is a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness,” Cleveland explains. ...” 

Grade: M (new stock)

CS TRACK LISTING SIDE A:

1. A Ghost
2. Bloom
3. Faces In The Firelight
4. Mystic Mine
5. Light On The Water
6. Quick Winter Sun
7. Bonanza Freeze
8. Gold Tower

CS TRACK LISTING SIDE B:

9. Babe
10. Ten Hour Drive Through West Coast Disaster
11. Evil Eye
12. Mayonnaise
13. Sheriff Of The Salton Sea
14. Walking Through Morning Dew

CD TRACK LISTING:

1. A Ghost
2. Bloom
3. Faces In The Firelight
4. Mystic Mine
5. Light On The Water
6. Quick Winter Sun
7. Bonanza Freeze
8. Gold Tower
9. Babe
10. Ten Hour Drive Through West Coast Disaster
11. Evil Eye
12. Mayonnaise
13. Sheriff Of The Salton Sea
14. Walking Through Morning Dew